On the seven seas,
We've sailed many of the world's great routes,
We've witnessed all kinds of exchanges and conflicts,
We've lived through many conquests and tragedies brought on by nautical travel,
Excitement! Drama! All this in...
...The Age of Exploration!
Hello and welcome to Taiwan Bar,
Today we're going to talk about what happened to Taiwan when it finally got in on the Global Village
(More like thrust into the Global Village)
And what finally made Taiwan consequential on a truly global scale.
Of course Taiwan was part of the Global Village from the start,
But most people in history were restricted to knowing of events in their near vicinity.
News from around the world would not reach them.
They made their lives as fulfilling as possible in their limited scope.
The Austronesian-speaking peoples of Taiwan, for example, were organised in tribes and confederacies.
Only in the 16th and 17th centuries,
When Europeans mastered the technology of long-haul sea trading voyages, did things change.
Among the traders, a certain Dutch company claimed Taiwan.
Wait. Pause a second. A company?
That's right! The first foreign polity on Taiwan was established by a trading company.
They brought with them violence, Christianity, and European culture.
What changes would this contact with the supposed "civilised world" bring for Taiwan?
[clears throat] Let's find out.
Starting in the 15th century, Spain and Portugal took to the seas.
Spain and Portugal even agreed to split the entire known world in two..
Portugal took the eastern half, and Spain the western.
They respectively struck it rich thanks to spices and gold/silver.
The other European powers naturally were drooling to get in on a piece of the action.
So the Dutch, in this Age of Exploration,
- Struck it rich? - [buzzer] Not yet!
The Dutch eventually made their way to Formosa (alias: Taiwan).
The Dutch people who came to Taiwan did not, however, represent the Netherlands, but a company.
Said company was created in 1602 from 14 smaller seafaring trading companies.
It was called the Dutch East India Company, or VOC for short.
Even though VOC, just like "USA" is normally an initialism and not an acronym,
But I'm going to elect to save a few syllables and de-initialise it.
What's the difference between the VOC and other trade companies?
They were able to secure many important priviledges from the Dutch government.
Especially a monopoly on trade in the Far East.
This monopoly made it so that VOC ships were the only Dutch ships allowed to trade in the Region.
In addition, the VOC were allowed to build a standing army, issue currency, declare war, sign treaties, etc.
The powers made it basically a sovereign country.
Thus, the VOC could attack others to gain better profits, but the Dutch government had deniability.
And be all like "they represent the company not the government, sorry not sorry."
The VOC used the powers bestowed unto them to build fortified trade posts all over Asia.
Their impressive navy also weaved in and out of the trade routes to protect their merchant vessels.
At the time, goods made in China such as porcelain and silk were especially sought after.
Traders from all over the world wanted them.
Once in Asia, the VOC naturally wanted to trade with China.
They spared no effort in trying to get a trade post as close to China as possible.
Portugal, however, had beat them to the prime spot of Macau.
The highly civilised Europeans clearly could not simply ask nicely if they can do business side-by-side.
In the Age of Exploration,
Having superior armed forces was their asking nicely.
The VOC thus tried to get rid of the Portuguese by force
But the Portuguese were certainly not pushovers.
They successfully defended against the VOC's attacks.
The VOC took the second-best option of the Pescadores Islands.
But then China was all like:
"The Pescadores Islands are property of the Great Ming Empire. Don't make me come over there!"
As a third choice, the VOC reluctantly came to Taioan (now near Tainan) in 1624.
By the way, say "Taioan" 10 times fast and you'll see how it is where the name "Taiwan" comes from.
Taiwan thusly broke from its regional circle and entered almost by accident into the global arena.
The Dutch quickly learned that other than Aboriginal Taiwnese, there were others active here,
Especially the Han Chinese and Japanese, but there was no recognisable sovereign nation ruling Taiwan.
Many Chinese pirates used the island as a base.
Big bosses would appear here from time to time like video game bosses.
Other than pirate parties, smugglers ran rampant here as well.
Taiwan acted as a layover stop.
Chinese goods and Japanese silver would again get shipped off after brief stays on Taiwan.
But there was one commodity that made Taiwan proud and elbowed its way into global trade.
This is also one of Taiwan Bar's regulars: deer pelts.
Formosan sika deer used to be abundant
The Japanese came to Taiwan for high-end Chinese goods,
And they were ecstatic to see sika deer running amok.
As Japan was experiencing the Warring States period at the time,
There was great demand for deer pelts used for helmets and sword sheathes.
The Japanese who came to Taiwan were merchants and couldn't possibly chase deer around.
So they persuaded Chinese merchants to acquire pelts from Aboriginals.
The Aboriginals thus increased their trade of goods with the ethnic Han.
Aboriginals, Japanese, and Han traded thusly on Taiwan until...
...the Dutch came to disrupt the cycle!
At first, the Dutch wanted to trade only near Taioan,
But they viewed the Japanese merchants as competition.
The Dutch then taxed Japanese merchants coming into Taioan port.
The incessant taxation angered the Japanese traders.
They felt the Japanese have long traded in Taioan,
Just because the Dutch have muskets and cannons should not mean they can act like they own the place.
Not only owning the place, but taxing!? What in the world!
A certain Japanese merchant named Hamada Mahyoe,
During the power struggle between Japanese merchants and the VOC
Went with a few dozen men to the governor of VOC Taiwan, Pieter Nuyts.
They kidnapped Nuyts and took his son back to Japan as hostage.
Nuyts was dismissed because of this.
Japan-VOC relations came to a new low, even forgoing trade.
This is known as the Hamada Mihyoe Incident.
Later, due to the Sakoku policy of the Tokugawa Bakufu, all Japanese were banned from sailing,
VOC-Japan tensions in Taiwan finally came to an end.
After the Incident, the VOC realised it should not be content with just business,
But it needed to establish meaningful control over the island as a long-term solution.
The VOC ventured inland to take better control of Taiwanese territory,
But the Siraya were the indigenous people there,
There is no way the Dutch can come and go at their leisure.
At the time, Mattau (now Madou) was the largest Siraya settlement with one to two thousand warriors.
Mattau was the regional power in the VOC's early days.
Chinese pirates remained cordial with the indigenous peoples for good business.
Speaking of, these pirates were also troublesome for the Dutch.
The Dutch wanted to clear the island of pirate strongholds.
In 1629, the VOC sent forces into Mattau to capture pirates.
But the forces were nearly wiped out by Siraya warriors, who were also unhappy with Dutch control.
This is known as the Mattau Incident.
The VOC then took retributive actions
Under intense threats of violence,
Aboriginal settlements around Taioan such as Mattau and Soulang (now Jiali) pledged alligiance to the VOC.
To rule over Aboriginals, the VOC chose a more indirect rule.
The VOC would call regular meetings to demonstrate the Company's firepower and policies,
Aboriginal elders would also be given a ceremonial staff, symbolising the VOC's investiture of local power.
Wait a sec. This needs some clarification.
It is a misconception that Aboriginal languages are only recently being written down.
In reality, the VOC imported many missionaries (who acted much more like company employees).
They aided the VOC in ruling over Aboriginal settlements by acting as middlemen.
The VOC's most effective means of rule was conversion.
To serve their function, missionaries learned Siraya and even created a Latin alphabet-based writing system.
They then translated Christian scripture
And supposed "civilisation" to spread to the Siraya.
This writing system was used primarily in Sinckan (now Sinshih), near Taioan.
Thus the common name "Sinckan Manuscripts."
The Aboriginals who used this system thus had a writing system.
Even a century or two after the Dutch left Taiwan,
Aboriginals would use goose-feather quills like a boss to sign contracts with Chinese in their mother tongue.
As the VOC gained more control of inland Taiwan,
The VOC's costs soared and profits were compromised.
To offset the trade imbalance, Taiwan would need to become more than a pit stop,
In short, it needed to produce its own goods.
Aside from deer pelts, sugar cane and rice were also lucrative products,
But these labour-intensive crops were not suitable for settlers from the sparsely populated Netherlands.
The Chinese, having good work ethic and experience in agriculture, were then subject to VOC recruitment.
The VOC even offered generous benefits for labourers from coastal regions of China.
Control over Chinese, of course, was more intensive than control over Aboriginals.
For example, Chinese were subject to head taxes and other taxes.
Taiwan's increasing Han population understandably made the VOC sense danger.
The numerically superior Chinese were increasingly dissatisfied, especially with rising taxes.
The fuse was finally ignited with an incident known as the Gouqua Incident.
4 to 5 thousand, nearly a quarter of all Han, answered Gouqua's (Mandarin: Guo Huaiyi) call to rebellion.
The rebels' scythes were understandably no match for cannonfire and Aboriginal allies of the Dutch.
Even though the rebellion was quashed,
It exposed the problem of an outsider ruling minority unable to handle ethnic relations.
Being all: "I am in the majority, why are you in charge?"
In the end, the VOC was forced to leave Taiwan due to superior Chinese firepower.
The person who achieved the expulsion was of course the infamous Koxinga.
Hopefully we now have a better idea of why the Dutch chose Taiwan and why Taiwan entered the global stage.
The Dutch had very little actual control outside of the Taioan region.
The majority of Taiwanese were Aboriginals,
With a minority of Chinese and a few Japanese traders.
Other than the Dutch, the Spanish attempted to colonise the north of Taiwan.
Their fort on the most easterly point of Taiwan is on Cape Santiago (a Spanish name).
The name Mattau, famous today for its pomeloes, comes from the Siraya language.
From various pieces of evidence, we can see Taiwan was an active worldly participant at the time.
This is different from the simplified occupational image we are often given of Dutch or Spanish colonisation,
Then when the next coloniser comes, the winner takes it all.
"Dynastic change" as used in China may not be accurate for Taiwan.
Cultural contact is bound to bring about destruction, but also opportunity.
If we use anguish over invasive occupation or nationalist glory as our sole lenses to view history,
It would be near impossible to imagine how groups of people lived side-by-side in a corner of the world.
Time for some umeshu.
See you next time.
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